Take your time, DePo. The "new guy" will be "your guy", so there shouldn't be any reason to have communication issues.

I predict we'll all read this exact line within the next two months: "Stoneman, a real man's man, likes hunting and eating his wild steaks while DePodesta enjoys writing scripts to instantaneously solve his Sudoku puzzles."

Is he one that would likely take a moneyball approach?

The Dictator

Hinting darkly (without any facts) that that Pendleton must have another motive, Dilbeck writes:

"What does it say about the organization that someone would actually turn down a chance to manage the Dodgers?"

Didn't media favorite Tracy get the job because Felipe Alou did "actually turn down a chance to manage the Dodgers" five years ago? Selective amnesia must be a vital job prerequisite for being a sports columnist.

The other howler is when Dilbeck talks about how it would be great for the Dodgers to get a manager "Who might be able to sell a ticket or two." Exactly how many tickets did Tracy, or any other Dodger manager in the past sell? How many tickets do Scioscia or LaRussa sell?

The Dictator

I like that whole dispensing with punctuation thing the P-T has going

Maybe I should try it myself Then again maybe not My posts make relatively little sense as it is

I'm also calling the Dodgers ticket office to see I can buy a special "Melvin Pack" for all the DBacks games.

The bad news is, I don't think Kirk Gibson knows this -- then or now. His HRs-walks-high-percentage-steals game was just the way he naturally played, not, alas, the product of some well-thought-out philosophy.

Although it seems like it should make intuitive sense, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that a manager will manage in the same style that he played. In fact, I think it's more often exactly the opposite -- Weaver liked lots of HRs, Frank Robby likes the bunt, Beane likes the walk, etc.

It seems to me that GMs and managers are usually more admiring of the skills they didn't have as players.

12 -- Did he actually say stuff like "The Dodgers need player X, Y, and Z"? That's what I want to see from the columnists. I'm really curious to see what Bill Plaschke and Steve Dilbeck's Dodgers would look like. And in any case, they may have done it in the past, but certainly aren't doing it now.

Izturis
Cora
Green
Beltre
Loduca
Bradley
Encarnacion
Roberts

That's a team! Of course, get that lazy malcontent Bradley out of there for Finley, and now you're chock full of scrappy goodness.

God bless him though.

I'm surprised that Gibson would be interested at all in returning to L.A. I was always under the impression that he didn't like Southern California and preferred living in Michigan, where he grew up. I thought he owned a farm there too. Maybe the past few seasons with the Tigers soured him on life there.

"On Tuesday, Atlanta Braves hitting coach Terry Pendleton, scheduled for an interview with DePodesta today, withdrew as a candidate. The Dodgers said it was because Pendleton wanted to remain in Atlanta with his family, although he oddly did interview with Tampa Bay on Monday."

Last I checked, Florida was a little bit closer to Georgia than California was.

Personally, I'm glad the DePo is looking at a wide range of candidates. I don't see anything wrong with exploring what "type" of candidate will work best with him.

Plaschke endorsed the Piazza trade and the Bradley trade and openly whined when the Giants got Schmidt and the Padres got Giles. It wasn't until this year when it appeared he preferred Cora to Kent and Finley to Drew.

Regarding managers selling tickets, my guess is that Lasorda sold tickets when he was manager.

I know what you mean though -- I refuse to read Plaschke and Simers at all, and I've added Keisser to the blacklist too.

Don't shortchange Valentine's accomplishments in Japan. He got the Japanese equivalent of the Royals to the Japan Series after just two years on the job and won a five-game playoff series where his team was the visitor for all five games.

The 1988 Dodgers.

How many of today's managers are a PR dream like Lasorda was? Regardless of his success in Japan, even with a serious roster upgrade, Valentine would be a trainwreck if he managed the Dodgers under DePo.

Or to take it back even further, a group of fairly succesful infielders helped sell more tickets at the beginning of the Lasorda years than Lasorda did.

Thank goodness I hit refresh, because I was about to post that exact same thing...

Oddly enough, the team didn't even sell 3 million tickets in '88.

I'm chubby.
I'm of Mexican heritage.
I'm left-handed.
And I probably pitch about as well as Fernando does now.

Sign me up!

In baseball, attendance is always a reflector of how your team did the year before, not how they're doing this year. Go check out BB-Ref for the attendance patterns of different teams. Like clockwork.

Which is why the Dodgers were breaking attendance records this year, even though the team stunk. And why the attendance will almost certainly fall off in 2006, even though the Dodgers are virtually guaranteed to have a better team.

I do find it odd that the '89 team drew less than the '88 team though.

But, just for the sake of discussion, I'm going to take Dilbeck seriously for a moment. He picks up on something that is true: DePodesta is interviewing a range of candidates with a range of unique attributes among them. That's undeniably true. There is no way to group all these candidates into a single type.

Is that a bad thing? Not on the face of it. But it does indicate, does it not, that DePodesta is still exploring not just who, but what he wants in a manager.

From reading Moneyball and watching the A's, as well as watching DePo so far, it does seem that the weak spot in the sabre-philosophy of running a team is the relationship between the GM and the manager. The manager's role under a sabre-regime is thus far undefined. Is he a puppet of the GM, sort of an assistant GM for on-field operations? Or is he the team's leader, its prime motivator, its disciplinarian, and most key, the decision-maker on issues like line-up, rotation, substitutions, etc. I'm not sure if DePo is clear on all that. It was embarassing that he had to plead his case before Tracy to get Choi and Perez some playing time, but underneath that episode was a conflict of expectations. Who's running the team, day to day? Tracy thought it was him, and he wasn't off his rocker for thinking so. DePodesta was asserting his authority, but is the front office the place where that authority can be exercised?

As the sabre-philosophy evolves in practice, I think eventually the job descriptions of the GM and the field manager will change. You might see the roles combine, with the GM suiting up every game, and making the daily executive decisions, supported by a stronger and more specialized corps of coaches. Who knows? But to give Dilbeck his due, the lack of commonality among DePo's manager candidates is striking, and meaningful. Dilbeck gets it wrong because he's biased and wants to use the issue to whack DePo, and that's stupid. But he raises an interesting point nonetheless.

The jobs would have to be redefined. You do see NFL coaches working in the front office, but there jobs have much different schedules.

And NFL coaches have an unhealthy case of megalomania.

This is only true if you operate under the assumption that DePodesta already knows everything there is to know about the candidates he is interviewing.

It's never a bad idea to interview as many people as possible even if you already have someone in mind. You might find someone better, gain a little knowledge, or find someone that may not fit as manager but might have other assets that will help the organization in another area.

And I think it's possible that the candidates DO have something in common, but more along the lines of their philosophies, rather than something you'd see just looking at their names and levels of experience. I get the feeling that there's got to be something that made DePo consider them in the first place.

I'm going to chime in here with the obligatory "they've never been in my kitchen" comment.

I did once this past season, to this same writer, Dilbeck, when he made a frighteningly ignorant comment about the Dodgers farm system. My letter was never printed but more than a week later I did get a quick email from him saying "Thanks for the feedback."

So, it's probably a waste, but maybe if enough people complain, they'll start worry about the one thing that hits them where they live - losing readership. The main reason these sportswriters (and I've known a few good ones, who eventually quit because of this) write this garbage is to sell papers and stir up controversy, and also because they are bored and lazy - and it's easier to criticize, much easier, than to come up with something new and positive.

It's sad when you think of the legacy of sports journalism in LA, that this is now what we're left with. Not just LA of course, it's a national epidemic. Lazy, angry sportswriting.

Oh well, count me among the ignorers... Simers was on my list almost instantly a few years ago, the others are now, too, until, as one of you pointed out above, there's hardly anything left worth reading any more.

C/U

No, he was a wide receiver.

Or, at least, so says the Michigan State media guide, plus every other written reference I've ever seen regarding Gibson's football career.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy!_in_culture#Cheers

Candidate #1: Paul? Paul DePodesta? Paul DePodesta, I thought that was you!

DePodesta: Hi, thanks for your interest in the Dodgers.
[Starts to walk away]

Candidate #1: Hey now, don't you tell me you don't remember me 'cause I sure as heckfire remember you.

DePodesta: Not a chance.

Candidate #1: Ned... Ryerson. "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C'mon, buddy. Case Western High. I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing. Ned Ryerson, got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson, I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple of times until you told me not to anymore? Well?

DePodesta: Ned Ryerson?

Candidate #1: BING!

DePodesta: Bing.

Flanker Kirk Gibson raced for one touchdown on a reverse and hauled in another long pass for another Saturday ...

Who runs a reverse with the tight end? Gibson's specialty was speed. Gibson would have been pretty small for a tight end. Even in the late 1970s.

BUT, Lasorda protege Tony Danza is probably available.

Maybe the Dodgers should have a lottery. An art center near here had a fundraising lottery where you could win a house. The Dodgers could raise money for Katrina relief by holding a lottery for who will manage the Dodgers in 2005. The winner would have to agree to stay with the team from March-the postseason, and do whatever DePodesta tells him.

Then there are the press conferences:

Bill Plaschke: "The bad news is, you lost 91 games. So what's the good news?"

New Dodger Manager: "Well, the whiskey works."

T.J. Simers: "So with McCourt being such a cheapskate, how do you plan to win with this measly payroll?"

New Dodger Manager: "The first thing I'll tell my players is this: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it."

Worst. Marketing. Idea. Ever.

"Jamie McCourt, his power-hungry wife who wears the Size 0 mini-skirts, is making a majority of the decisions alongside her key henchman, senior vice-president of public affairs Howard Sunkin, whose baseball background is the same as Jamie's dress size. His background is in public affairs and politics."

...is patently untrue. I've run into Sunkin over the years, pre-Dodgers. He's a smart guy, smart enough to know what he knows and what he doesn't know. He helps the McCourts and the team deal with government and politicians, and that's plenty of work right there. He's not the kind of guy who would insert himself into baseball decisions.

I don't know Jamie McCourt, except I do know she's been her husband's business partner since long before he bought the Dodgers. It is quite typical in the real estate development business for family to be deeply involved, because such businesses usually start as small, entrepreneurial operations that run out of the founder's kitchen.

How Keisser gets away with dismissing Jamie McCourt's competence to be involved with her husband's business, without providing a single fact that would suggest she lacks such competence, strikes me as beyond lazy. There's a nice pasture somewhere for Bob Keisser, and the P-T should send him to it.

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2005/10/on_the_lakers_blogwagon.html

Okay, well, uh... candlesticks always make a nice gift, and uh, maybe you could find out where she's registered and maybe a place-setting or maybe a silverware pattern. Okay, let's get two! Go get 'em

I have a sister-in-law who is a Size 0. She is very small. Jamie McCourt looks to be on the petite side also. Why this is something to be held against her is puzzling.

Just think of how more mean-spirited Keisser would have been if Jamie McCourt were heavy.

Billy Bob Thornton played a baseball manager (albeit not in the Bigs).

Martin Sheen has the gravitas. Charlie could be the pitching coach.

Q:"Who runs a reverse with the tight end?"
A: A team with Gibby!

"Gibson's specialty was speed. Gibson would have been pretty small for a tight end. Even in the late 1970s."

This I know, in the interview Gibby was talking about how he loved "laying wood" for a running back or a QB. Him being small or atypical for a Tight End of even a Fullback doesn't matter. This is Kirk Gibson we're talking about.

Not exactly an average guy. Not exactly a guy you would bet on to take home a league MVP. Not exactly a guy who would let things like size stop him.

Machete attack linked to Urbina
The Phillies pitcher faces accusations of violent behavior in his native Venezuela.

By Todd Zolecki
Inquirer Staff Writer

Phillies relief pitcher Ugueth Urbina has been questioned about his role in a bloody brawl Sunday on family property in Venezuela, according to newspaper reports.

The incident occurred after a welcome-home party for the pitcher. Urbina went out to eat, then returned about 2 a.m. with several people to the farm in the town of Ocumare del Tuy, about 25 miles south of Caracas, several Venezuelan newspapers reported.

According to one of the farmworkers, Urbina started asking about a firearm that had disappeared. The worker, 21-year-old Ricardo Osal, told police that Urbina and others rounded up the workers, beat them, attacked them with a machete, then splattered gasoline and paint thinner on them and burned them.

I think the point is that Improbable's "hero worship of the 88 team, especially Hershiser and Gibson, is so over the top that we must infer that it is offered tongue-in-cheek. Not ironically (as with the long-running, but thankfully dead riff on "Alex Cora would have..." but simply as cartoonish hyperbole.

That said, we get it, Improbable. You love Gibson and Orel. So do most of us. Nuff said. Let's move on.

No. 1: "Shaking hands with Abraham Lincoln"

1. It is unlikely that Jamie McCourt or Howard Sunkin are making baseball decisions of any kind, and Keisser offers zero facts to the contrary, just a snarky assertion.

2. It is very likely that Jamie McCourt is involved on many other aspects of running the Dodgers. Keisser and other writers assume she is unqualified, and I think that assumption, without evidence, is indefensible and insulting.

Frank McCourt might be from a wealthy Boston family, but real estate development is, nonetheless, an entrepreneurial, mom-and-pop kind of business, even at the high-stakes level where the McCourts played.

Many of Sunkin's clients (at Cerrell Associates, his employer prior to the Dodgers) were just this sort of developer. I'm sure he understands how they think. It's an odd industry, not particularly corporate, and each business is a precise reflection of its founder/owner's idiosyncracies. It is also a business that is highly nepotistic--because sometimes there's no cash flow, and it's easier to skip payroll when it's your wife or son.

McCourt obviously trusts his wife and other family members a lot. It looks weird from the outside. But from his perspective, I imagine he's worked with them before, and he knows what they can and can't do.

"He hit us, threatened us with machetes, poured gasoline on us, and it was only by chance that he didn't burn us all," said Argenis Farias, one of five laborers hurt in the incident. The investigation continues and it's possible that charges could be filed.

This is the same Urbina who was driving drunk while firing off a guns in the air.

Wouldn't it be funny if he signed with the Angels. Plaschke would write an article about him how tough he is because of how he dealt with the drug lords who kidnapped his mother.

The Dictator

I don't think this is true of most A's fans, or at least all the A's fans that I know and a lot of the people I see commenting on A's blogs. I think a lot of them are still bitter about 1988.

All said, again, I do think Gibby would be an asset to any coaching staff, and could really have a positive impact on a team in a diminshed role, like bench coach or third base coach. Just having the guy's winning attitude, reluctance to accept anything less than 100% and legacy would be an inspiration to the Dodgers.

Rachel is the Owner of the Clevland Indians in Major Leauges. I love that movie.

At the end of his segment, Roggin announced that Terry Collins was the "assumed" front-runner to be the next Dodger manager.

Then, with no clear introduction of what he was about to show the audience, he ran an archive video clip of Collins with tears in his eyes telling reporters why he was quitting as manager of the Angels (in 1999).

After the clip ran, Roggins smirked and said he understood why Collins was so upset - he was working for the McCourts and DePodesta.

He did not provide a reference as to what the clip actually represented. Pretty cheesy I thought.

The tar is getting soft under these mastadons' feet. Pretty soon we won't be able to see them at all, but we'll hear them screaming all the way down.

2. Strong women like Mrs. McCourt are always easy material for the male press to dump on. Sounds to me like much the same BS that was poured on Mrs. Clinton that was independent of her political views. A successfull woman still scares plenty of males and the only way for them to deal with it is to make fun of or ridicule their attempts to succeed in a male dominated area. For me the McCourt and Depodesta bashing has become bizarre. I guess when you fire friends of the press you are screwed. Something to remember in the future.

3. It is very strange to me that players like
Willie Randolf/Frank Robinson/Joe Morgan who played exactly the type of ball that anyone at BP would love don't understand what made them such great ballplayers. Billy Beane was a crappy player and yet understands what makes a great player. Most hitting coaches were crappy hitters. Not to many HOF pitchers have been successful pitching coaches. I'll never understand why the best to play the game are never good at teaching/managing the game.

Lucky for the Dodgers and the McCourts, except for the USC football broadcasts, no one listens to Roggin's radio station.

Um, extend it to ALL talk radio. It caters to the lowest-common-denominator listener who already agrees with the talker's perspective.

Why did we keep on going to Dodger games in near-record numbers this season? Why did we pay for parking, buy hot dogs and beer, have a good time and cheer for the Jasons.

Why aren't we all grabbing our pitchforks and blazing torches and storming the gates of the McCourt mansions? (they own two homes in So. Cal now. That really seems to bother Simers).

Our beloved sportwriters seem very perplexed and bewildered by the fans refusal to turn their backs on the team.

138 - Seconded. There is actually a picture from that movie up on that Gary Gaetti website...

My belief is that political talk radio is not new media. It was innovative in that it filled an ideological vacuum, i.e. before Rush Limbaugh, no one was speaking to or for the "right wing." But it's still basically one-way communication. Rush and his ilk, including his left-wing imitators on Air America, unilaterally decide which callers get through, and use those callers to illustrate the points they want to make.

Whereas the true new media, found only on the Internet so far, is distinguished by being two things: Instantaneous, and interactive. Jon writes, say, 500 words a day on this site, more or less. The posters write...gobs more. I couldn't even guess, but it's a factor of at least 100, maybe 1000 on a busy day. But it's all part of the DT experience.

However, I liked the McCourts until I just found out that Mrs. McCourt is comparable to Mrs. Clinton.

That might be a good thing, no? Maybe a Gibson butt-whooping is exactly what's needed to keep Bradley on the straight and narrow -- either as manager, or bench coach, or whatever.

Personally, I'd like to see the studious-and-by-all-accounts-willing-to-learn Hershiser get an assistant GM position or something similar.

The jokes are funny, and the man is a hero of mine, but let's face it, folks -- Gibson's Dodger career was a lot more injury-marred than Drew's has been so far.

I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

Loney is now 4-13 with a double and 2 homers playing on the taxi squad (only play 2 days a week). A nice break out season next year for Loney would be great...

162-163... I was thinking the same things, Orel in a suit. I'd like to see him get a shot at some pitching coaching, though. It's easy to think that Gibson or someone would be good for Bradley. I think he's had several chances to see what others have done. Evidence so far suggests it doesn't seem to be taking. I wonder if Gibson would have an F-ing filled F-ing tirade about F-ing up an F-ing pitch.

This seems like the day for stereotypes. The idea that Kirk Gibson would be a bad manager is based totally on visual cues. He looks like a big, dumb, fierce jock. Whereas other ex-player managers look like wise sages-- Felipe Alou, Dusty Baker, Frank Robinson. But it could turn out that Gibson is as brainy as we think Orel Hershiser is, and it could also turn out that Orel is a big pork rind eater.

I think Jon should interview all the candidates. He could bring Timmerman, Suffering Bruin, Steve of FJT, and a couple others with him. Maybe it would be best if they watched through a one-way mirror. If a manager candidate was okay with Jon and co., he'd be jake with me.

I also think 1988 may have been the worst thing that could have happened to this club in the long term. Everyone gets fixated on a horribly flawed team that by some miracle won it all, and holds it up as "The Dodger Way". Overachieving teams are fun to watch, but not much fun to rely upon.
[/rant]

The former is certainly possible. But we know enough about Hershiser to be fairly confident that the latter is not.

171
I don't see any of those ex-managers/players as comparable to Gibby. They were all hot headed infielders who talked to much. Gibby doesn't appear to be in love with his voice and really wasn't much of a hot head other then the spring training incident. Quiet and intense is much different then a loud hothead.

Sorry if someone's said this already -- I haven't had a chance to read all the comments, but:

Jon, Bob, Eric: Exactly how many managers in the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers were hired with major league managing experience under their belts?

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that the answer is just north of Jamie McCourt's dress size and just south of Tommy Lasorda's uniform number. And I seem to also remember that that hire worked out pretty poorly. Am I off base here?

Matter of fact, how many "Hollywood" managers have the Dodgers EVER had? I can think of one...

Unless he improves his hitting a great deal, Loney has no chance of sticking in the majors, glove or no glove. I hope he does it, but...